₹300-Crore Central Package for SC Welfare Schools Under Review: Adluri

Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment Ramdas Athawale has promised a review next month of the state’s request for a `300-crore package to upgrade scheduled caste welfare schools and hostels, state social welfare minister Adluri Laxman Kumar said on Wednesday. Athawale also agreed to initiate steps for the release of `150 crore from Central funds pending to Telangana, according to Kumar.

Kumar met Athawale at Tourism Plaza in Begumpet and submitted a representation seeking money for building repairs, additional classrooms, hostel extensions, dining halls, kitchens, toilets, drinking-water facilities, compound walls, electrification, digital classrooms and computer laboratories.

Pending allocations under centrally sponsored schemes had placed an additional financial burden on the state’s welfare programmes, Kumar told the union minister. He also sought central assistance for SC education, employment, skill development, housing and social empowerment programmes.

Kumar said Athawale had promised support for SC students and assistance to victims in cases registered under the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Earlier, Kumar made a surprise visit to the Telangana social welfare residential educational institutions society office at DSS Bhavan in Masab Tank. Parents from different districts submitted petitions seeking residential-school seats for their children as the allotments in distant districts had increased their expenses. Kumar directed officials to consider nearby districts wherever the admission rules permitted.

“Making certain that a poor student’s education does not stop is the government’s responsibility,” Kumar said.

The minister said the state had increased diet charges by 40% and cosmetic charges by 212% after 16 years.